De zondag overleden Robert Duvall had geen moeite met het spelen van een bijrol. Maar juist met een hoofdrol in de film 'Tender Mercies' won de Amerikaanse acteur een Oscar. Tijdschrift 'People' noemde Duvall ooit „Hollywood’s No. 1 No. 2 lead”.
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PARIJS (ANP/AFP) - De Franse regering heeft aangekondigd de regels voor het afschieten van wolven te versoepelen. Nu mogen boeren wolven alleen afschieten als die vee in beschermde omheiningen aanvallen, maar na een beleidswijziging mag dat ook buiten die omheiningen.
Wolven waren ooit in Frankrijk uitgeroeid, maar keerden via Italië terug. Ze kregen in 1979 met het Verdrag van Bern een beschermde status. De bescherming van wolven wordt in diverse EU-landen afgezwakt, nadat Brussel vorig jaar instemde met het verlagen van de status van wolven van "strikt beschermd" naar "beschermd".
"Beschermd of niet, boeren krijgen het recht om te schieten ter bescherming van hun vee", zei de Franse landbouwminister Annie Genevard. Wolven doodden vorig jaar 12.000 boerderijdieren, aldus voorlopige cijfers. Het is de bedoeling dat de wijziging ergens in de komende weken officieel wordt.
LIVIGNO (ANP/AFP) - De Chinese freestyleskiester Eileen Gu heeft bij de Olympische Spelen genoegen moeten nemen met de zilveren medaille op het onderdeel big air. Megan Oldham veroverde goud namens Canada, de Italiaanse Flora Tabanelli pakte brons. De finale in Livigno werd met meer dan een uur uitgesteld vanwege zware sneeuwval.
Tweevoudig olympisch kampioene Gu (22) verweet de internationale skifederatie FIS afgelopen weekend geen rekening te houden met haar unieke programma op de Spelen. Als enige olympiër doet de 22-jarige Gu mee aan de drie onderdelen: big air, halfpipe en slopestyle. De finale van de big air viel samen met een voor haar belangrijke training van de halfpipe. De FIS weigerde het schema voor haar aan te passen.
Gu veroverde eerder in Italië olympisch zilver op de slopestyle. Ze won in Beijing 2022 goud op de big air, goud in de halfpipe en zilver op de slopestyle. Megan Oldham legde in Italië beslag op brons op het onderdeel slopestyle.
WOLFSBURG (ANP/DPA) - Het Duitse autoconcern Volkswagen wil met een nieuw besparingsprogramma de kosten met zo'n 60 miljard euro terugdringen, veel meer dan tot nu toe was voorzien. Dat meldt zakenblad Manager Magazin op basis van ingewijden. Hiermee moeten de kosten tegen 2028 met 20 procent dalen.
Aanleiding voor de ingreep zijn tegenvallende verkopen in China en de Amerikaanse invoerheffingen. Hierdoor zijn eerdere besparingsmaatregelen onvoldoende. Volgens het zakenblad worden fabriekssluitingen niet uitgesloten, evenmin als verdere banenreducties bovenop de al aangekondigde 35.000 arbeidsplaatsen. Een woordvoerder van VW wil niet ingaan op de kwestie en verwijst naar de al lopende besparingsprogramma's bij alle merken.
VW-topman Oliver Blume geeft tijdens de jaarlijkse persconferentie op 10 maart een tussentijdse update over de situatie. De voorzitter van de ondernemingsraad, Daniela Cavallo, benadrukte dat fabrieksluitingen en gedwongen ontslagen "uitdrukkelijk zijn uitgesloten" in een deal die met het management is gesloten.
Mr Mikage (ミスター御影） posted a photo:
New Delhi's air quality index averaged 349 in December and 307 in January -- levels the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies as hazardous -- and the months-long smog season that forces more than 30 million residents to endure respiratory illness has this year sparked something new: public protest. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at India Gate on November 9 to demand government action; police detained more than a dozen people, and a follow-up protest later that month turned violent.
The government's response has been largely cosmetic. Authorities deployed truck-mounted "smog guns" and "smog towers" that scientists widely regard as ineffective, and a cloud seeding trial in October failed outright. A senior environment minister told Parliament in December that no conclusive data linked pollution to lung disease -- a claim doctors sharply disputed. The government cut pollution control spending by 16% in the latest federal budget. Almost 1.7 million deaths were attributable to air pollution in India in 2019, according to the Lancet. A 2023 World Bank report estimated the crisis shaves 0.56 percentage point off annual GDP growth.
The government's response has been largely cosmetic. Authorities deployed truck-mounted "smog guns" and "smog towers" that scientists widely regard as ineffective, and a cloud seeding trial in October failed outright. A senior environment minister told Parliament in December that no conclusive data linked pollution to lung disease -- a claim doctors sharply disputed. The government cut pollution control spending by 16% in the latest federal budget. Almost 1.7 million deaths were attributable to air pollution in India in 2019, according to the Lancet. A 2023 World Bank report estimated the crisis shaves 0.56 percentage point off annual GDP growth.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri told a Los Angeles courtroom last week that a teenager's 16-hour single-day session on the platform was "problematic use" but not an addiction, a distinction he drew repeatedly during testimony in a landmark trial over social media's harm to minors.
Mosseri, who has led Instagram for eight years, is the first high-profile tech executive to take the stand. He agreed the platform should do everything in its power to protect young users but said how much use was too much was "a personal thing." The lead plaintiff, identified as K.G.M., reported bullying on Instagram more than 300 times; Mosseri said he had not known. An internal Meta survey of 269,000 users found 60% had experienced bullying in the previous week.
Mosseri, who has led Instagram for eight years, is the first high-profile tech executive to take the stand. He agreed the platform should do everything in its power to protect young users but said how much use was too much was "a personal thing." The lead plaintiff, identified as K.G.M., reported bullying on Instagram more than 300 times; Mosseri said he had not known. An internal Meta survey of 269,000 users found 60% had experienced bullying in the previous week.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The standing ovation from the Macclesfield fans at full time was deserved. Their side may have lost 1-0 on the night, their dream FA Cup run coming to an end just when a lucrative trip to West Ham’s London Stadium in the fifth round had veered into sight, but pride was the overriding emotion.
Ultimately it had taken an unfortunate own goal from Sam Heathcote, a PE teacher plying his trade as a part-time footballer in the National League North, to nudge Premier League Brentford into the fifth round. For 70 minutes Macclesfield had proven a match for their illustrious visitors and they ended their cup campaign with a 2-2 aggregate scoreline against Premier League teams after the historic win over Crystal Palace in the third round. No wonder fans were shouting support and patting players’ backs after the final whistle.
Continue reading...American was competing in her fifth Olympics
Ties Bonnie Blair for US women’s medal record
It took her five Olympics, but she finally got there: USA’s Elana Meyers Taylor won gold in the monobob on Monday, capping a long and brilliant career.
The 41-year-old competed in her first Olympics at Vancouver 2010, and since then she has won three silver medals and two bronze across two events, the monobob and the two-woman bobsleigh. Her victory at the Milano Cortina Games came down to the final run of the competition with Laura Nolte competing to best Meyers Taylor’s time of 3min 57.93 sec. But the German could not respond and Meyers Taylor became America’s oldest-ever female Winter Olympic champion.
Continue reading...Northampton coaches eased post-Lions burden
England back played 34 games last season
England’s Tommy Freeman has revealed the extent of his mental struggles after the victorious British & Irish Lions tour of Australia at the end of a season when he exceeded the player welfare limits for the number of appearances.
Freeman played in 34 games last season – 19 for Northampton, nine for England and six for the Lions – and has spoken of a “built-up anxiety” as a result of the workload. The mandated limit is 30, but players were given dispensation for the Lions tour on the proviso they were allowed five weeks off on returning from Australia and missed the first two rounds of the 2025-26 season.
Continue reading...Rayo had to prepare at Getafe’s place and play at Leganés’s stadium. But they still managed to upset Atlético Madrid
One day in November, the coach of Rayo Vallecano decided that was it: he was out. The captain in whom he finds strength had reached a similar conclusion long ago, handing in his armband as an act of protest and dignity. Two Fridays ago, the squad signed a statement saying they couldn’t carry on like this. And last Friday, the fans who’ve been through it all before decided they too would walk away. Yet 48 hours later, after another week that proved them right, resisting everything, there they were still, celebrating another implausible success, another day when they had stuck it to The Man. If not, admittedly, the man they’d like to stick it to.
Actually, ‘there’? Not all of them were in the same place, even if that was a way of showing they were in this together. Because Rayo fans were out on the streets of the self-styled independent republic of Vallecas with their banners and scarves and songs on Sunday, while their team and coach were 10km south, playing in a different city. With their training ground unusable and their home home ground declared to be so too, they had to prepare at Getafe’s place and play at Leganés’s stadium. Where, in front of 9,000 empty seats, and kicking off in the relegation zone, they only went and beat Atlético Madrid 3-0, three days after Diego’s Simeone’s side had battered Barcelona 4-0.
Continue reading...Vienna turns into a playground of camp, cruelty and aristocratic disdain in a blackly comic take on the Báthory legend – with Huppert gloriously suited to the title role
From the dark heart of central Europe comes a midnight-movie romp through the moonlit urban glades of Euro-goth and camp from German director Ulrike Ottinger. As for the star … well, it’s the part she was born to play. Isabelle Huppert is Countess Elizabeth Báthory, 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman and serial killer, legendary for having the blood of hundreds of young girls on her hands and indeed her body, in an attempt to attain eternal youth. The “blood countess” has been variously played in the past by Ingrid Pitt, Delphine Seyrig, Paloma Picasso, Julie Delpy and many more, but surely none were as qualified as Huppert who importantly does not modify her habitual hauteur one iota for the role.
Her natural aristocratic mien and cool hint of elegant contempt were never so well matched with a part. She gives us the classic Huppert opaque gaze – part dreamy, part coldly assessing – and the politely bemused half-smile of concealed distaste, merging into a pout, at the absurdity or ill manners of someone to whom she cannot avoid being introduced. Unlike the other mere mortals in this film, Huppert’s face is lit like that of a Golden Age Hollywood star, giving her impeccable maquillage a ghostly sheen of profane sainthood.
Continue reading...
25 years ago today, Bad_CRC posted the primordial meme video "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" on Newgrounds.
In honor of this important anniversary, I downloaded the original Flash SWF file from Internet Archive, played it using Ruffle in a full-screen window, and replaced the audio with the original MP3 of "Invasion of the Gabber Robots" by The Laziest Men on Mars. So this is probably the highest fidelity encoding possible, without going back to the original forum GIFs.
Make your time.
In de buurt van Oudewater (nabij Woerden) is maandagavond een trein in de richting van Rotterdam ontruimd nadat er brand was uitgebroken. Zo'n 120 reizigers zijn geëvacueerd. Niemand raakte gewond.
